


The King He Is Not

by bug_from_space



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chess, Chess Metaphors, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 20:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8682238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bug_from_space/pseuds/bug_from_space
Summary: Albus and his opinion of chess, through the years.





	

When Albus is a child his favourite chess piece is the queen. He likes her power, and the path of destruction she leaves behind. He would always try and protect her in games of chess, he had won more than a few games with nothing more than his king and queen, it always surprised people when he did. He doesn’t think of the king as an important piece, except the fact it’s the one he needs to protect to win.

When Albus meets Gellert his favourite becomes the king. The one all the other pieces lay down their lives for, the one that needs to be protected. Gellert is a king, he thinks, only ever taking a small step in any direction, but controlling the whole game. (They have played so many games to a point where they both only have a king left). They both consider themselves kings, kings that would rule the world for the greater good.

After the duel Albus thinks about chess, how all the pieces line up. He considers the idea that a king isn’t protected, but imprisoned by his own. (He certainly feels imprisoned by the walls of the school sometimes, and Gellert most certainly is.) Albus doesn’t play chess again for a while, he settles with reading, and grading papers, then the running of the school after he becomes headmaster. He tells himself it’s because he has no time, that he can’t.

 

He watches younger students playing the game and laughing when the queens destroy their opponents players. He smiles a little watching the students play, and hoping they never have to go through what he did. And he thinks of Gellert, the king in checkmate, (although maybe it’s just another game played until stalemate). Voldemort is not a king he decides, perhaps a bishop or a rook with delusion of grandeur, but not a king or a queen. Eventually he starts to play again, playing by carefully constructed rules, put never forgetting about the feeling that a king is a prisoner, not a leader.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah! Chess metaphors and sad teachers! I seem to be good at this, but I hope you enjoy!


End file.
